Dream of Me, My Darling
by trolltasm
Summary: Sesshomaru finds Kagome sleeping by a large tree, alone and defenseless. With InuYasha nowhere in sight, he resigns himself to acting as the girl's protector. She is, after all, the Shikon Priestess and worthy of that much. But then, in her sleep, he hears her whisper something and knows nothing will ever be the same again...


_A/N: Sesshomaru finds Kagome sleeping by a large tree, alone and defenseless. With InuYasha nowhere in sight, he resigns himself to acting as the girl's protector. She is, after all, the Shikon Priestess and worthy of that much. But then, in her sleep, he hears her whisper something and knows nothing will ever be the same again..._

* * *

InuYasha had run off again.

Sighing, Kagome settled down against a tree. She was _not_ going to chase after him. She was exhausted, hungry, and more than a little annoyed that he'd dragged her out under the pretense of 'making their relationship work' and then had off and vanished because she'd wanted to help someone and he hadn't 'been in the mood.'

The villagers wouldn't have been able to handle the snake yokai on their own.

She'd left to take care of it, InuYasha's irate demand that she return and he would 'deal with it later' still ringing in her ears. The villagers were losing their children to the yokai; they could _not_ afford to wait.

And... InuYasha hadn't come after her.

Their relationship had been tumultuous ever since she'd retuned from the future, but she'd never once believed that he'd actually leave her, not after all they'd been through.

Yet he hadn't chased after her.

Perhaps, she reflected to herself quietly, it was time to let the sleeping dog lie—pun unintended—and stop trying to plug the holes in their relationship instead of abandoning the ship before she drowned.

She pulled her lapels of her priestess garb more tightly around her to ward off the cold and closed her eyes. She could deal with the situation tomorrow; there would be time enough then.

.

Sesshomaru stopped at the familiar soft touch of reiki against his skin and resisted the temptation to close his eyes for a moment.

It wasn't often that he experienced power that in any way came close to touching his own and he knew immediately who the source must be. Without stopping to consciously think about it, his feet took him in the direction it came from.

"Jaken," he said over his shoulder without so much as a backwards glance at the imp. "Find Totosai."

It was a fool's errand; he had no need to see the smith, but it would keep Jaken occupied for a short time and would have the added benefit of annoying one of his father's retainers. It could be beneficial to finally procure a sheathe for Bakusaiga, so perhaps it was not as foolish an errand as he'd initially believed.

"Yes milord!" Jaken chirped, racing off with the dragon to leave Sesshomaru alone. Why he felt the need to send them off, he couldn't say, but he was relieved when they left him.

He found the priestess slumped against a tree, defenseless as she slumbered. He immediately searched for his half-brother's presence, but found no trace of InuYasha nearby at all.

_Most peculiar_, he mused. As far as he'd been aware, InuYasha had not left the girl's side since she'd returned.

He'd never quite determined where the priestess had haled from, but he'd picked up enough from Rin's incessant chatter to gather that, wherever it was, it had been located far enough away that InuYasha had not been able to visit her for several years until her return.

So why had she been left alone?

He considered leaving her there but could not bring himself to do it. The priestess had gained much of his respect when she'd annihilated both the Shikon jewel and Naraku, purifying several _ryo_ of land that would have otherwise been perverted when Naraku's body had fallen upon it.

He knew of no human more powerful than she and yet she'd fallen asleep in the middle of the forest, defenseless. With a quiet sigh of resignation, he sat down to lean against a tree opposite her, careful not to get too close while ensuring he would be close enough to act should something or someone be foolish enough to do so.

For awhile, nothing happened, save the occasional stirring of her reiki against his yoki. It would cause his own yoki to stir against her power and each time, he would carefully force it back.

He would give her no indications later that he had ever been here to watch over her in the first place.

But then, as the moon rose to its full position against the sky, she began to mutter to herself in her sleep. At first, it was gibberish, with some of the words she spoke not sounding like any words he'd ever heard before. He idly wondered if perhaps the priestess had gone mad.

It might explain why the hanyo had abandoned her.

But then she'd sat up suddenly, eyes wide, filling the surrounding area with so much reiki that his yoki instinctively rose respond before he could force it back. The two powers, so opposite one another, hadn't warred against one another as he'd have expected. They blended, one twirling around the other until he could not tell where one ended and the other began.

He didn't stop to think; he pulled his yoki back within him with the iron control for which he was so infamous. He would _not_ allow the priestess' power to taint his own in any way and for the first time, he wondered if he'd underestimated her own power.

But her reiki didn't pull back when he pulled his own yoki back, even when she'd slumped back against the tree with a tiny little snore.

Wide-eyed, he watched as her power pressed against his body, causing shivers no human woman had the right to cause in the daiyokai.

He felt a rush of anger at how unaffected she was by her own display of power as the priestess slumbered on. He felt twisted inside, bemused and uncertain, but with a strong feeling that he should _do_ something—though he hadn't the inkling as to _what_.

And then, to the horror of his own mind and the heated pleasure of his body, as her own power teased against his senses, she whispered, "_Sesshomaru_..."

He ceased thinking entirely.

.

Kagome stirred, her mind foggy as she tried to figure out what had awakened her. There was a familiar warmth of power surrounding her own, with the usual twinge that told her it was yoki, not reiki. Yet there was a pleasurable incurrent to it that warmed her down to her curling toes, making her feel like she'd never felt before.

She'd been having the most wonderful dream... A man—one she hadn't been able to see clearly—had been before her, filling her with a pleasure unlike any she'd ever known, and just when she'd been about to break apart, something had stirred, forcing her to awaken.

But why?

Blearily, she opened her eyes, half-expecting there to be some formidable yokai standing before her with less than honorable intentions.

Instead, she found herself seeing the hazy form of Sesshomaru before her eyes, sitting so still that he might as well have been a statue.

"Sesshomaru?" Her voice was hoarse, raspy, as she tried to blink her eyes enough to see clearly. Why was Sesshomaru there?

His gaze met hers, tinged with a red that made her want to move towards the heat within them. "Do not move," he demanded, his voice fierce even as his yoki reached for her, teasing her with the desire to meet his power with her own.

The command in his tone made her want to do the exact opposite and she was too exhausted to push back the urge. She moved—not quite standing, but not quite crawling—as she moved to the tree next to him, and part of her wanted to giggle at his annoyed hiss. "I'm not one of your vassals, Sesshomaru. Don't tell me what to do."

More alert now, she raised an imperious brow at him, silently daring him.

His yoki sparked in response.

Hers rose to meet it as her own body shivered.

"If you move, priestess," he rasped, pausing to lick his lower lip, "then this one will not be held solely responsible for what shall occur."

"_If_?" she challenged, following her instincts as she pressed her lips together and shuffled a little closer to him.

He didn't pull away, his gaze firmly trained upon her own. After a moment, his gaze dipped and she gasped, drawing back as she realized that _Sesshomaru_—the Great Dog General of the West—was ogling her breasts.

His tongue moved to swipe his lower lip.

Kagome froze, watching as it traced the fullness of his lip, her own breath caught. And then, unbidden, her body leaned in as his yoki shifted, caressing her body with a delicious warmth she never would have thought it capable of before.

His eyelids slid lower as his gaze shifted to her lips. He leaned in and she held her breath, anticipating what she knew in that moment would be the fiercest kiss of her life and—

"Oy! Kagome!"

They both jolted, parting as the sounds of InuYasha's footsteps grew closer. Within moments, they were standing some distance apart just as InuYasha came within view.

"Move it, wench! I want to get home before tomorrow evening." He huffed as he spotted Sesshomaru. "Oy, bastard, if you're expecting to come back to the village with us to see that brat—"

"InuYasha." Kagome's voice dropped into a familiar tone as InuYasha's ears flattened.

He shoved his hands into his sleeves. "Keh. I ain't gonna wait on you." He turned and walked off, leaving Kagome behind with Sesshomaru.

She turned to follow InuYasha, her mind now made up that, whatever happened between them, their romantic relationship had effectively ended.

To her surprise, Sesshomaru caught her elbow, looking down at her with a fierce expression. "This is not over, priestess," he promised her, his tone dropping to the warm baritone it had been moments before InuYasha arrived.

And then a golden orb of light formed around him and as she blinked to block out the light, he vanished, leaving Kagome behind to deal with the dissatisfaction now coursing through her.

_Stupid InuYasha._


End file.
